For 26 years, disappeared about 10% of the world’s wildlife.
The destruction of wild nature threatens disaster for the environment and humanity.
This was reported in a study published in the journal Current Biology.
According to the study, a quarter of a century the Earth has lost about 10% of the territory wildlife due to human activities.
It is reported that the number of destroyed lands in proportion to two times the area of Alaska and half the area of the Amazon. According to one of the scientists of the research group of Dr. James Watson, in recent years, much attention has been paid to the problem of extinction of certain species of animals, but very little was known about the large losses of whole ecosystems, especially land wildlife.
To fill this gap, the researchers mapped the wilderness areas around the world that are biologically and ecologically intact landscapes. The researchers then compared their current map of areas of wild nature with the results of such studies are the beginning of 1990-ies.
Comparison of the two maps has shown that in recent years, 3.3 million sq km (about 10%) of the world wildlife were destroyed. As noted, the most untouched corners of nature has disappeared in South America and Africa.
“If we do not act soon, there will be only tiny remnants of wildlife on the planet, and it’s a disaster for conservation, climate change. This will become a sentence to the most vulnerable communities on the planet,” said Dr. Watson.
Colleague Watson Dr. Oscar Venter says that the only way to save wildlife is to protect what is left, since the restore ecosystems lost territories of wild nature is impossible.
